The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1887-07-28

as you go into the Sunday-SchO0lS, ana
the approaching stations, and the penn
tentIaries, and the asylums, want you
TO feel that you bear in your hand
weapon, compared with which the light
ming has no speed, and avalanches have
no heft, and the thunderbolts of Heaven
have no power; it is the arrow Of the
omnipotent Gospel Take careful aim.
Pull the arrow clear back until the head
strikes the bow. Then let it fly. And
may the slain of the Lord be many.
Again, if you want to be skillful in spir-
itual hunting you must hunt in unfre-
quented and secluded places. Why does
the hunter go three or four days In the
Pennsylvania forests, or over Raquette
lake into the wilds of the Adirondacksi
It is the only way to do. The deer are
shy, and one "bang" of the gun clears
the forest From the California stage
you see, as you go over the plains, here
and there coyote trotting along, almost
within range of the gun-sometimes quite
1t is worthless. The good game is hidden
and secluded. Every hunter knows that.
So, many of the souls that will be of
most worth for Christ, and Of most value
to the church, are secluded They do not
come in your way. You will have to go
where they are. Yonder they are down
in that cellar, yonder they are up in tn at
garrett. Far away from the door of any
church the gospel arrow has not been
pointed at them. The tract distributor
and the city missionary sometimes just
catch glimpse of them as hunter
through the trees gets a momentary
sight of partrid ge or roebuck.
The trou BILE is we are waiting for the
game to come to us. We are not good
hunters. We are standing in Schermer-
horn street, expecting that the timid
antelope will come up and eat out Of our
hand. We are expecting that the prairie
fowl will light on our church steeple. It
is not their habit. II the church should
wait 10, 000 900 of years for the world to
come in and be saved, it will wait IN vain.
The world will not come
What the church wants now is to lift
their feet from damask ottamans and put
them in the stirrups. We want pulpit
on wheels. The church wants not so
much cushi ons as it wants saddle bags
and arrows. We have got to put aside
the gown and the kid gloves and put on
the hunting shirt We have been fishing
so long in the brooks that run under the
shadow Of the church that the fish knows
US, and they avoid the hook and escape as
soon as we come to the bank, while yon-
der is Upper Saranac and Big Tupper's
Lake, where the first swing of the gospel
net would break it for the multitude of
fishes.
There is outside work to be DONE What
is that see in the backwoodsa It is
tent. The hunters have made clearin g
and campsd out. What do they care if
they have wet feet, or have nothing but a
pine branch for pillow, or for the north
east storms If a moose, in the darkness,
steps into the lake to drink they hear it
right away. If loon cry in the midnight
they hear it. So in the serving of God
we have exposed work. We have got to
camp out and rough it. We are putting
all our care on the 10000 people of Brook
lyn, who, they say, come to church.
What are we doing for the zoo, 900 that do
not comet Have they no soulss Are
they sinless that they need no pardon
Are there no dead in their houses that
they need no comforts Are they cut of
from God, to 60 into eternity-no wing to
bear them, no welcome to greet theml
Ihear to-day surging up from the lower
depths of Brooklyn groan that comes
through our Christian assemblages and
| through our Christian churches; and il
blots out all this Gene from nv eyes to
day, as by the mist Of great Niagara
for the dash and the plunge of these
great torrents of life dropping down into
| the fathomless and laundering abyss OF
suffering and woe. I sometimes think
that just as God blotted out the Church
of Thyatira and Corinth and Laodicea,
because of their sloth and stolidity, he
will blot out American and English
Christianity, and raise on the ruins a
stalwart, wide-awake missionary church.
that can take the meaning of that com.
mand.
Go into all the world, and preach the Gospel
| to every creature. He that believeth and IL
baptized shall be saved, and he that believett
! not shall be damned.
Iremark, further, if you want to sue
| coed in gospel hunting you must have
| courage. IT the hunter stand with tremb
| ling hand or shoulder that flinches with
fear, instead OF his taking the catamount
the catamount takes him. What would
| have become of the Greenlander if, when
! out hunting for the bear, he should stand
shivering with terror on an iceberg'
What would have become of Du Chaillu
and Livingstone in the African thicket
with faint heart and weak kneel
| When panther comes within twenty
PAGES of you, and it has its eye on you,
| and it has squatted for the fearful spring
"Steady, there"
Courage, O, We spiritual huntersl There
are great monsters Of iniquity proving
all around about the community Shall
we not, in the strength of God, go forth
and combat thema We not only need
more heart, but more backbone. What is
the Church Of God that it hould fear to
look in the eye any transgressiona There
is the Bengal tiger of drunkenness that
prowls around, and instead of attacking
it, how many of US hide under the church
pew or the communion tablet There is SO
much inves ted in it we are afraid to as.
sault it-millious of dollars in barrels, in
vats, in spigots, in corkscrews, in gin
palaces with marble floors and Italian tor
tables and chased ice-coolers, and in the
tartaric acid, and the nux vomica that
go to make up our 'pure'' Amer
lean drinks. / looked with wondering
eyes on the Heidelberg tun." It is the
great liquor vat of Germany, which is
said to hold eight hundred hogsheads of
wine, and only three times in one hundred
years has it been filed. But as / stood
and looked at it said to myself:
That is nothing-eight hundred hogs.
heads. Why, our American watts hold